Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality is the result of his study of the structure of languages; specifically, the interesting fact that there are two possible antonyms for the word “good”: the word “bad” and the word “evil.”
Ancient languages, like Greek, Latin or Sanskrit, tended to focus on the Good/bad dichotomy, where “Good” = “stuff we like/ stuff that is like us” and bad is the absence of Good. Thus, it’s Good to be healthy and bad to be sick; it’s Good to be strong and bad to be weak; it’s Good to be rich and bad to be poor, and so on. The point is that the original concept is “Good.” But when we turn to the other dichotomy, Nietzsche argues, the situation is reversed: “Evil” = “stuff we hate/ stuff that harms us” and good is the absence of Evil. (It’s Evil to be cruel – it’s good to be merciful; it’s Evil to murder – it’s good to spare life; it’s Evil to steal – it’s good to refrain from stealing; notice how in every case, the “good is simply the absence or avoidance of the Evil.)
Nietzsche being Nietzsche, he uses this insight to construct an elaborate schema of Master (Good/bad) and Slave (Evil/good) Moralities, but we needn’t bother with that. The question I want to explore is:
When we say “good”, which version are we talking about? Un-bad or Un-evil?
It seems to me that nearly all concepts hailed as “good” in current society are, in fact, un-evil. The proggie mainstream is obsessed with “diversity”, which is simply the absence of the Evils of “racism” and “sexism” (and, nowadays, “transphobia.”) Conservakins might worry about crime and terrorism (Evils) or taxes and deficits (Evils.) Libertarianism, at least “muh rights” libertarianism, is entirely defined by its opposition to state control (Evil.) Now, imagine proponents of these ideologies trying to describe what Good looks like, in the sense of “something positive in itself that isn’t just the absence of an Evil.” It’s kind of fun to picture the proggies having a go at this. (See if you can think of a single thing those people like for itself, and not merely as the antithesis of something they hate. It’s quite a challenge. Maybe cuddle piles would fit the bill?) Libertarians couldn’t possible come up with a vision of the Good inherent in their philosophy; indeed, that’s sort of the point. They might, perhaps, refer to the ability of each person to pursue his own vision of the Good (as Nozick did in that Framework for Utopia that anticipates Moldbug’s Patchwork) but this, again, is merely the absence of coercion: an un-evil. About conservakins I will have something to say in a minute, but I’d first like to consider Nrx.
And it seems to me that, while the central unifying theme of Nrx is opposition to the Cathedral/ Modern Structure (i.e. opposing an Evil) each of the three wheels on the Trike has its own vision of a Good that is positive in itself, not merely the avoidance of an Evil:
Techcomms: It is Good to have the power to effect change in the universe, gained through ever-increasing wealth and scientific knowledge. Helplessness is bad.
Trads: It is Good to lead a virtuous life with the hope of a blissful afterlife. Immorality is bad.
Ethnats: It is Good to exist as part of a strong community linked by bonds of solidarity. Atomization is bad.
Conservakin, I suspect, would endorse some or all of those Goods, though they would be unable to grasp them quite so clearly and absolutely (if they could, they wouldn’t be conservakin, now would they?)
I suspect that focusing on the Good, rather than simply the un-evil, might act as an innoculation against entryism and less organized forms of mimetic drift. More on that in another post, perhaps…
Cuardach 